


La Douleur Exquise

by sodium_amytal



Category: Rush (Band)
Genre: Angst, Infidelity, M/M, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 23:48:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9521477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sodium_amytal/pseuds/sodium_amytal
Summary: (1980). "I don't wear mittens, Ged. They're not flattering to my hands."





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a gift exchange on Rockfic.

_La douleur exquise | French | 1. the heartbreaking pain of wanting someone you can't have._

* * *

Alex's voice strikes Geddy like a dart, waking him from a deep slumber. "Ged."

Geddy forces his eyes open and suffers through the ache. Since the band took up temporary residence at a lakeside studio in Quebec, it takes Geddy about five seconds to remember where the hell he is when he first wakes up. He's not used to the tranquil silence permeating the huge building, familiar instead with the hum of the suburbs from outside his bedroom window.

Alex stands over his bed, peering down at him with bleary eyes and a small smile. He's wearing a dark grey peacoat thrown over a bulky grandma sweater, jeans, and a scarf wrapped around his neck.

"Wake up," Alex murmurs, so as to not disturb Neil slumbering in a nearby bed.

Geddy has only a vague estimation of the time—faint slivers of light leak through the gaps in the drawn curtains—but he knows it's too goddamn early for this. "No," he grumbles, the word rough in his throat as he turns over on his side and pulls the wool blankets tighter around himself.

"I can't sleep."

It's only been about two hours since the three of them finished the day's work on their upcoming album and retired to the bedroom for some much-needed rest. But Alex has difficulty sleeping in a bed that's not his own, which, considering their touring schedule, leaves him a bit on the loopy side.

"Try harder." If they weren't sharing a bedroom with Neil, Geddy would invite Alex to climb into bed with him. But their new, expanded relationship is still in its infancy, a shameful secret hidden from even their closest confidantes.

"Take a walk with me?" Alex says, sitting on the edge of the mattress and jostling Geddy's hip with his hand.

"It's snowing," Geddy protests. He can't see out the window, but it's November in Quebec. Of course there's snow.

"So wear a coat." There's a slight edge of begging in Alex's voice that Geddy is intimately familiar with.

Geddy rubs his eyes, which throb like bruised testicles, and sits up. Alex grins at this display of acquiesce.

"I want some time with you. Just us," Alex says.

"I know."

Despite all the time they spend together on stage and in the studio, there are rare, precious moments where they are truly alone and can explore the possibilities in their ascended tier of friendship, which, as of last year, includes making out and clumsy intercourse.

Geddy finds his boots underneath the bed and slips them on. He puts on his coat, a scarf, and a pair of mittens in anticipation of the biting cold. As Alex opens the front door, Geddy notices Alex's hands are unprotected.

"No mittens?"

"I don't wear mittens, Ged. They're not flattering to my hands."

Geddy shakes his head with a rueful smile. Clearly this is a thinly-veiled excuse for Alex to hold his hand. _Idiot_ , he thinks fondly.

The lake has been frozen over since they arrived last month. The first time they were here, Alex suggested they skate on it, but none of them brought ice skates. Snow falls around them as they walk around the lake and into the nearby woods. There is a path that, after a long walk, leads to the sleepy village of Morin-Heights. But they're in no hurry to escape the solitude of their mountain hideaway just yet.

The sky is clear and pale with early morning sun. Geddy shivers, reaches for Alex's hand to warm him up. Their breaths become visible plumes of air in the cold as snow crunches beneath their boots.

"I can see why Neil likes it here," Alex says, looking around at the snow-capped trees. "It's nice. Quiet."

"Easy to get lost."

Alex gives him a curious, amused look. "There's only one road."

"That's not what I meant. The solitude. The way you can just... disappear. It would be hard to find your way back."

"Is that what you want?"

Geddy considers a life spent here with Alex, snowed in a toasty cabin, bundled up in sweaters and lounging together on the couch. The warm-colored leaves in autumn. Skimming stones over the lake.

He tries to keep the thought in his head, tries to picture a future with Alex, but the image doesn't hold.

"I don't know," Geddy finally answers.

The conversation they should be having hovers nearby. They never talk about the underlying current of infidelity that comes with what they're doing. It's stuffed into some internal closet like old clothes, unspoken and unsurmountable.

"It would be nice to live like that, but..."

"But you don't wanna give up what you already have," Alex finishes for him, pulling the words from Geddy's head.

Geddy looks away like he's been caught doing something terrible.

They fall into a comfortable silence as they walk, passing by ribbons of trees until they come to a small seating area, a place where you might have a picnic in the fall. They sit under the gazebo, brushing a coat of powdery snow off the seats before sitting down.

Geddy reaches for Alex's hand again, ignores the sliver of silver wrapped around Alex's third finger.

He should have worn the fucking mittens.

"Remember the last time we were here?" Alex says with a sad smile.

Geddy does. It had been an entire winter ago during the recording of Permanent Waves. Alex got into the liquor cabinet and spiked the eggnog with vodka. After everyone else retired and the eggnog ran out, Alex and Geddy stayed on the couch, passing the vodka back and forth. Alex had his legs in Geddy's lap, his head propped against the armrest while they recalled memories of their childhood and tour shenanigans. They had always been close like this, perhaps an unnatural amount of physical contact for two supposedly heterosexual men, but it felt natural, like two parts of a whole coming together.

Alex kissed him that night, his tongue hot and alive in Geddy's mouth, and Geddy let himself have that, because they were drunk and so far from home it didn't count. Which ended up being his go-to excuse the next hundred times it happened whenever they found themselves alone: hotel rooms, dressing rooms, coat closets, the cloaking darkness behind a stage.

This thing between them isn't all about sex, though that's definitely not a problem for them. The first time Alex sucked him off... It's never been like that for Geddy, sensation dragging him somewhere strange and untapped and entirely new. Even his first blowjob hadn't been like that, like the first hit of a drug, opening up neural pathways he didn't know existed.

Geddy thinks about that night, their first kiss on that couch inside Le Studio, and feels a fist squeeze his heart. "Yeah."

Alex squeezes Geddy's hand. He has known Geddy long enough to read his expressions, to know the type of thoughts running through his mind at any particular moment. "You jump, I'll jump. You know that, right?"

Geddy clamps his eyes shut, like a child trying to make a bad dream go away. He opens his mouth to say he doesn't want that, but upon further consideration, what _does_ he want? For them to continue on this way, stealing kisses and touches then going back to their families like everything's okay? Like they're not lying to everyone they care about?

"I'm okay with things the way they are," Alex says. "It's like having your cake and eating it too. I never understood that one until now. Like, why would you want a cake unless you're gonna eat it? What else can you do with cake?"

"So which cake are you eating?"

"You, of course." Alex grins.

 _Ask a stupid-ass question, get a stupid-ass answer_. Geddy sighs into the cold.

"You don't have to overanalyze everything, y'know," Alex tells him. "Just enjoy this while we have it, then go home and enjoy that. Lather, rinse, repeat."

"It's wrong. If you were a woman this would be indefensible."

"I hope I'd have nice boobs, at least," Alex says, staring down at his own chest.

Geddy fights a smile. Alex has absolutely no right making him laugh here, but that's what Alex does best. Alex is the funniest person Geddy has ever known, always able to lift his spirits and make him smile. Nancy isn't particularly funny, but she's a beautiful woman: she doesn't need to be.

"They're just fine already," Geddy says, patting Alex's chest through the layers of sweaters and coats.

Alex laughs, his breath gusting out in a puff of chilled air. Geddy stares at the shape of Alex's face, of his irresistible, lovely lips.

"How do you do it?" Geddy asks after a moment. "How do you go home and not feel guilty?"

Alex shrugs. "I try not to think too hard about anything. And I wouldn't mind if she was seeing someone else on the side."

Geddy stares at the field of snow spread before them. "Why isn't this enough? Why can't I just be happy?"

Alex curls a hand around the base of Geddy's neck and kisses him. Geddy whimpers a pathetic, helpless noise against Alex's plush lips. Every time they kiss, Geddy loses himself in the hot vortex of Alex's mouth, all anxieties gone like they've been cut out of him. He twists a hand in Alex's hair, and Alex tilts his head, licks his way into Geddy's mouth.

The comforting, familiar smell of him makes Geddy picture how things could be. There's Alex cooking dinner for them and playfully swatting him with a wooden spoon. There's Geddy waking up with Alex cuddled close, his breath warm and foggy against Geddy's throat. There's the two of them together, unrestrained.

"You make me happy," Geddy whispers when their mouths are their own again. "But so does Nancy. In different degrees."

Alex smiles and lays his head on Geddy's shoulder. "I can live with that."


End file.
